Long-Term Food Storage

After finishing updating our 72-Hour Kits last weekend, it was time to finally update our food storage. Our first step was to calculate how much was recommended for 1 full year of food storage for our family of 4. Here is a GREAT calculator to help you do so. Just put in the numbers and you’ll have a personalized page. Clearly, there are a lot of suggestions on that list that we shy away from eating, so I swapped and replaced where I felt necessary. Along those same lines, I personally feel that a HUGE mistake made when preparing for food storage is buying things that “you’ll only eat in case of emergency” or saying to yourself “well, this would keep us alive in an emergency situation…” BUY THINGS THAT YOU EAT NOW. Just build up an abundance of the things that your family eats on a regular basis (healthy things of course) and then you are continually rotating things through. It shouldn’t be a waste of money because when you do your shopping, what you buy goes to the back of the rotation and you still always have a year’s supply. Make sense?

 

I chose to focus on our dry storage first. I ordered nearly 500 lbs of food yesterday! But with food prices guaranteed to rise over the next few months, I felt GREAT with the accomplishment. There are many possibilities when it comes to purchasing food to store, but of course we wanted to store organic foods, as that is what our family eats, and so why would I spend money on food that I wouldn’t want to cycle through? I found some great resources and websites and I’ll share them below.

 

From www.bobsredmill.com I ordered:

-Organic Quinoa (50 lbs) –This is what we use in place of rice most of our meals. (expect a post dedicated to this in the near future )

-Organic Wheat (125 lbs) –This was less than the recommended amount for a family of 4, but we rarely use flour. The reason I did get it was so that I could start making our own sprouted wheat bread. You can also soak the berries and make delicious oatmeal as well.

-Baking Powder (approx 4 lbs) –For the occasion what I do use this, they carry a “non-aluminum” baking powder.

-Organic Regular Rolled Oats (75 lbs) YUM!

-Organic Flax Seeds (25 lbs) For some of these things with a shorter shelf life, try and judge how quickly you will be able to use them and plan accordingly.

-Organic Coconut Flour (8 lbs) What is this, you ask? You just wait…I am really excited to post about it!

 

From www.bulkwholefoods.com I ordered:

-Organic garbanzo beans (25 lbs) Hummus, soups, etc.

-Organic black beans (50 lbs) We LOVE black beans!

-Organic yellow popcorn (25 lbs) We love air popped popcorn.

 

A few sites that will be helpful in educating you on long term storage of food, shelf life, etc. are below:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2220971_store-food-long-term-survival.html

http://www.cherubimfood.com/en/product-shelf-life.html

http://survivalacres.com/information/shelflife.html

https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/information_center/storage_life_of_foods.htm

 

If you don’t see a specific item just Google “What is the shelf life of _____?”

 

There are different options when it comes to what to store these items in once you receive them, and we are opting to use #10 cans. They are supposed to keep food fresh longer because you’re only opening a small, usable amount at a time; rather than opening a big 5 gallon bucket and exposing everything to the air frequently. To determine how many cans or buckets you will need, I found these great sites: (We need almost 100 cans!)

 

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2011/03/10/10-cans-and-5-gallon-buckets-how-much-can-they-hold/

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_a_10_can_hold

 

I hope this information helps you get organized and started in preparing to store food for your family. Storing ahead of time with create a cushion in times of need, and will also help to supplement the rising food prices over the next year. It feels good to be prepared!

 

Other valuable sites available:

http://www.shelfreliance.com/

http://www.providentliving.org/content/list/0,11664,8034-1,00.html

 

del.icio.us Tags: Food Storage,Long-Term Food Storage,Emergency Preparedness,Dry Goods,Black beans,Quinoa,Wheat,Rolled Oats,Coconut Flour,Garbanzo beans,Popcorn,Aluminum free Baking Powder,Flax seeds,Organic Food Storage